Mealtime Pallets – An Ode to Military Humor

When I served as the commander of the 305^th Supply and Services Company in the 227^th Maintenance Battalion At Yongsan, Seoul, Korea, the company passed several major tests and milestones.  At the same time, unit effectiveness also improved remarkably.  This trend appeared subtly at first, in material readiness reports, but it also began to appear more tangibly in the appearance and actions of the soldiers.  I never did any open ranks inspections of the soldiers in formation.  I figured I didn’t have to because I expected my Lieutenants and Platoon Sergeants to inspect their soldiers.  I didn’t feel it was my job to police the soldiers, rather I led by example.  For example, I never told one soldier ever to get a haircut or to shine his boots or to correct an item on his uniform.  Not even once.  But my soldiers soon started to appear in formation with high and tight haircuts and highly shined boots.  My First Sergeant even made a point of drawing my attention to that fact.  One day when we were talking, he said, “Sir, have you noticed how the soldiers’ appearance has improved over the past few weeks?”  Just to be the devil’s advocate, I replied, “Improved?  Improved, how?  I’m not sure that I follow you, First Sergeant.”  “Oh come on, Sir?  Surely you’ve noticed that the soldiers have started getting their hair cut like you and they have started shining their boots like you.  Surely you’ve had to have noticed that.”  “Really?  I can’t say that I have.  Show me.”  “Are you serious?”  “What?  Do you think I’m blind?  Of course, I noticed.  Gotcha.”  “God damnit, Sir.  I wish you wouldn’t do that.”  “Yeah.  I know.  But I can’t help myself.  By the way, two things: first, I need to have a staff meeting this afternoon with all the senior staff; and second, the Battalion Commander is coming down to inspect the soldiers Friday morning in formation.  He wants the formation to be in dress greens.  I would like to have a run through formation tomorrow morning in dress greens just to get the company prepared.  Please inform the soldiers that I will award a three day pass to the best prepared soldier from each platoon.  Don’t expect the Battalion Commander to do the same thing.  That afternoon, I met with my senior staff to discuss a new mission that had come down through the chain of command.  Department of the Army was discussing new doctrine to test a new concept that was called palletized delivery of rations forward in the combat zone.  The new concept was going to be field-tested right here in the combat zone in Korea.  That meant that the 2^nd Infantry Division would be doing the field testing and that a supply company with a perishable Class I supply warehouses, Troop Issue Subsistence Activities (TISAs), and transportation assets would likely be doing the palletizing and delivery forward in the combat zone.  If you haven’t guessed already, that supply company with the aforementioned capability was the 305^th Supply and Services Company.  And the Commanding General of the 19^th Support Command had graciously volunteered the services of the 305^th Supply and Services Company to perform said palletizing and delivery forward in the combat zone.  Note to self, remember to thank the support Command Commanding General for volunteering me.  I inspected my soldiers.  The next morning to prepare them for the Battalion Commander’s walk-through inspection on Friday.  I thought that the soldiers looked good overall.  I made note of a few minor corrections that needed to be made and passed those along to the appropriate Platoon Leaders and Platoon Sergeants.  My walk-through inspection took approximately fifteen minutes.  On Friday morning, the Battalion Commander took about 45 minutes for his walk-through.  At the end of the walk-through, the Battalion Commander told the entire formation that they looked outstanding.  In fact, he had found nothing significant during his walk-through.  He even altered his plan and asked to walk through the barracks.  Since I walked through the barracks every evening before I went home just in case soldiers wanted to talk to me, I wasn’t worried about showing the Battalion Commander the barracks.  Apparently some of my Platoon Leaders and Platoon Sergeants were not quite as confident.  However, that walk-through went quite well.  Then, I shifted my attention to my next big mission.  My mission was to perform the previously mentioned palletizing of rations and delivery forward in the combat zone during a field training exercise for one brigade of the division in September.  The guidance I had received was to build pallets sufficient to feed 100 soldiers one meal with the total being, three meals equal to the daily headcount provided by the brigade.  Based on the headcount that the brigade provided to us, we needed to provide 30 pallets per meal times three meals per day for a total of 90 pallets per day for the duration of the field exercise.  Each pallet was to consist of the entrée, fresh fruit, beverages, condiments, bread, and other assorted items as selected by the brigade mess officer on a prepared pallet order form.  At least one pallet per day had to consist of MRE (Meals Ready to Eat) meals, fresh fruit, beverages, and other assorted items as selected by the brigade mess officer.  My transportation platoon worked in shifts to deliver the palletized meals forward to the brigade during its field training exercise.  I pulled soldiers from my laundry and bath Detachment to assist with building the pallets of meals.  I had to do that because building the pallets was essentially a nonstop job.  Thank goodness the mission only lasted one week.  At the end of the week, the Brigade Commander from the 2^nd Infantry Division stated that our mission had been a huge success.  The Deputy Division Commander for Maneuver, 2^nd Infantry Division, wrote a letter of commendation and sent it through channels to my Battalion Commander.  Apparently our delivery of palletized meals forward in the combat zone had gone really well.  In formation, I thanked all my soldiers for a job well done.  In another Battalion staff meeting, I learned that our recent mission had been a precursor of something much larger that was to come.  I was really looking forward to that.  I thought that I just might hold that information to myself for a while.  Once again, we had managed to pass another critical task without any exercises in futility.   

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